Live Review: Planet Desert Rock Weekend VI Night Three, Las Vegas, NV, 01.31.26
Posted in Reviews on February 1st, 2026 by JJ Koczan
Before Show
Today is the most beautiful it’s been yet. Warmer, sun is out. I had a stoner rock power lunch with Ryan Garney of High Desert Queen — all business, definitely not sharing our concerns for aging parents or anything — and afterward, did some meandering in a street market that had closed a block of Fremont St., where the venue is. It’s the kind of weather that I’m not going to talk about with my wife who is back in subzero conditions with maybe-more-snow. “Oh it hasn’t been that nice.” Like you can pretend 70 degrees Fahrenheit in January is hard times. Nah, it definitely is that nice.
After lunch, I found a shady spot to sit for a bit and write, watch people come and go, do the thing. Tonight is night three of Planet Desert Rock Weekend VI, but even going inside felt a ways off, and it was good to relax a bit. Six bands were to follow, and the last of them was The Atomic Bitchwax. It would be plenty of evening.
Kids running by. Dude railing against the injustice of a vending machine by shaking the living crap out of it. Hard. Big mad didn’t get his M&Ms. His friend told him to break the glass. It’s high stakes in Vegas. Sights, smells, a galleria made out of old shipping containers a couple blocks up with an appreciated public restroom, cars up and down the street. A kind of quiet weekend day, except busy with families and such. I spent a little bit further up Fremont, by Slotzilla and that way-overwhelming screen roof and all that. Felt like I was in Minority Report.
Meanwhile, at The Usual Place, The Atomic Bitchwax and Kind soundchecked back to back. Loud, duh. Knowing that’s coming doesn’t hurt it for me. Tonight I’ve seen four of the six acts playing, with Black Water Rising and The Heavy Eyes new, so that’s a thing to look forward to too, along with the rest of the night. Again, duh. The walking around was fun. I ran into Riku from Kaiser, who was literally walking out from his own wedding, so yes, it was a joyous meeting. Life happening.
Got caught up chatting and didn’t write a segue. Here’s the night:
The Show
Kind
Good for the soul. I knew it would be, and that’s not me trying to toot my own horn, but there’s not a ton of things that make me nostalgic for living in Massachusetts — I couldn’t be there when my mother had cancer; I worked jobs I hated and lost a career, such as it was; I put the best dog to sleep; I couldn’t make a baby and I developed an eating disorder that kind of almost killed me — but a greater chance of seeing Kind on the regular is a big one. The last record, 2023’s Close Encounters (review here), I would float as their best, and the new single “Bladelicker” (premiered here) is likewise killer and was aired, but live they’re an entirely different level of fun. An air of smirking shenanigans with Craig Riggs up front, Tom Corino hitting it hard on bass to punctuate Matt Couto’s inimitable swing on drums while Darryl Shepard’s guitar makes ready to scorch the ground they’re standing on. Riggs explained early on they’d be doing two songs from each of their three albums and then two new ones, and they did precisely that, rolling out a density of groove that felt kin to the concrete floor playing havoc on my old man knee this weekend, but when they hit into a gallop, that push is no less immersive for the urgency. Great band. “We really are, unapologetically, a stoner rock band.” And the first anti-ICE shirt I’ve seen this weekend, so thrice commendable at very least and that’s before you get to the fucking riffs or how nice they all are.
Dirty Streets
Wanna see something cute? Here’s a single premiered here in 2013 for Memphis heavy blues rockers The Dirty Streets that was sponsored by Scion A/V. Remember them? I swear, the things you find in the back end of this site. I’m sure all that stuff is collectable now to someone. Me probably. But if I’m nostalgia all over the place tonight, fair enough for the day it is (more on that later; look at me be vague on the internet) and for the classic/classy mellow-hangs heavy blues wrought by The Dirty Streets. They boogie a bit, but don’t need to push hard, and they dig in and feel jammy without really giving over to that impulse — everything in service to the song, is the ethic I’m talking about. They’re a songs band. I apparently haven’t seen them in 14 years, but I’ll tell you, I still knew to look forward to a bit of funk, and they brought that along too. I’ll never be 100 percent sure whether I should call them Dirty Streets or The Dirty Streets, but whichever it’s supposed to be sure did rock, and that includes the make-it-tasty “Stayin’ Alive” cover. Disco ball was going and everything. And sure enough, Saturday night. Clever. Underrated band with the the tonal equivalent of shag carpeting, and a cool pick to follow the early blowout with Kind, reorienting to a clearer tone and more straightforward approach, but keeping the focus on melody and songwriting. Or maybe the theme for tonight is riffs. I guess we’ll find out. All the bands tonight are from the US as well, which makes it unique among the four.
The Heavy Eyes
It’s been six years since The Heavy Eyes (they’re definitely The) released their last album, Love Like Machines (review here), and that means it came out at arguably the worst time in the history of releasing records, but it was my first time seeing them, so it was all fresh to me. They played the first Planet Desert Rock Weekend in 2018, and are a band that fest curator John Gist has championed all the while. The reasons were readily apparent from the stage, as the four-piece led by guitarist/vocalist Tripp Shumake, who mentioned from the stage he lives in California now; the rest of the band, so far as I know, is Memphis-based. That means they share a hometown with Dirty Streets and they shared a bit of the bluesiness of their vocals with them too, but it was a fuller fuzz push from The Heavy Eyes, dirtier and more in line with Kind when they locked in a bigger groove or two, sort of drawing elements of the first two bands together, taking the flow of the evening in their own direction. They had the biggest crowd of the night so far. Night three you enjoy watching your friends having a good time as much as the bands.
Throttlerod
Apart from the bands I’ve never seen, I think Virginia’s Throttlerod hold the record for it being the longest time since I last saw them, Sept. 2011, in Philly (review here), at a Small Stone Records show. Granted they haven’t been touring all the while or anything, but that’s coming on a decade and a half. They’re such a fascinating band, right up to what Matt Whitehead is doing now in Shun, bridging heavy rock, noise rock, post-hardcore, Southern vibing and so on. It’s a blend of influences that’s probably only possible coming from VA, now that I think about it, but even among VA bands (and I’m pretty sure they’re not all in VA anymore, but the influence of a place and its atmosphere and effect on your life don’t go away because you move), Throttlerod stand on their own. There’s nobody else at this festival that do what they do, and yet you wouldn’t call them a radical departure, what with the full-bore riffage steamrolling everybody in the room. I guess it’s the musical honesty. And the heart. There aren’t a lot of bands who can tap into where they’re coming from, make something coherent and theirs from it, and then get onstage and kill with that thing they made, but that’s apparently where Throttlerod are at. I’m very glad and very fortunate to have found out tonight in the manner I did — see “steamrolling” above. There was some technical issue with the guitar. Didn’t slow them down. Ron was pleased. That’s all you need to know. Phenomenal.
Black Water Rising
They’re from New York. That’s a thing I found out. They were here in 2019. I needed to learn this stuff because I’ve never seen Black Water Rising before and so I’m trying a bit too catch up with the riffs they rolled out. Themes? Riffs, American heavy, singers always. That kind of night. Black Water Rising were professional sounding as hell. They were kind of on the line between hard and heavy rocks, and could probably play on a bill with some kinds of metal. It didn’t really turn out to be my kind of thing in terms of sound, but no arguing with the delivery. They were filling in for Saint Karloff from Norway or Fuzz Sagrado from Brazil/Germany, depending on how you want to look at it. Not an easy slot to take at all, but they held their own in it, not sounding like either but holding it down on stage. Also I learned that guitarist/vocalist Rob Traynor was in Dust to Dust. I remember when that first Dust to Dust record came out. I was doing college radio at the time. Like I said, nostalgia all over the place tonight. No escaping it. It’s okay. I’ve lived long enough to know someday I’ll be nostalgic about this too.
The Atomic Bitchwax
Speedriff heroes of my beloved Garden State, The Atomic Bitchwax might be the band playing this weekend I’ve seen the most — I don’t have those numbers; it goes back further than this site — but it remains a pleasure when they take stage. The Chris Kosnik-led three-piece, of course with Bob Pantella (Kosnik shouted out his birthday) on drums and Garrett Sweeny on guitar/backing vocals, are over a quarter-century removed from their debut, and they’ve had their ups and downs like everybody, but they hit harder now than they did two decades ago, and they’ve pushed themselves to become the band they are, creatively and physically, because yes, some of their stuff is pretty fast. Capping the night, they did a bevvy of the hits between “Hope You Die,” “Birth to the Earth,” the Core cover “Kiss the Sun,” “Coming in Hot,” “Ninja,” etc. People had stuck around, so it was a good late crowd, and the Bitchwax did what they do. I would wager most in the audience knew what they were in for — I’m sure it was somebody’s first time, but not everybody’s — and the band still managed to knock you off your feet. I didn’t get to harass them about when a follow-up for 2020’s Scorpio (review here) might be coming, but the set they played was so air tight and had so much nuance with intro riffs, little asides, sprints and whatnot, that I found myself thinking of a live record more. Could be time, though obviously if they happen to have a new studio LP in the can and just haven’t told anybody yet, that’d be just fine as well. Band rules. I take them for granted, but they’re a treasure of New Jersey heavy and the voluminous reminder they issued of that fact was very much appreciated. Thanks, Bitchwax. I’ll hope the next one comes around soon.
After Show
Hard not to feel an adrenaline charge after the Bitchwax. All that infectious shred and the t-t-t-total freedom.
I went up to the guy who owns The Usual Place tonight. His name is Carlos, I found out. I didn’t tell him who I was, because I’m nobody and who cares, but I said his place was awesome and thanked him for hosting this festival for four nights. It’s a great spot, and I got to take in a bit of the area around it today, which I hadn’t before — the parties were going hard on the walk up Fremont to where Adam had parked — and that only emphasized the point. I also met Glenn Dehmer from 8-Trax Sound, who’s been running the board all weekend. It has been bass-heavy and stellar. Thick, soupy groove. Fucking a.
The cats from Spaceslug — actually they’re people — are staying at Adam’s tonight and I think tomorrow too after they play. I look forward to hanging out a bit tomorrow and there was talk of more look-at-old-rocks sightseeing, and you know I’m up for that.
But tonight’s over for me and I’m about three minutes away from falling asleep at the keyboard, so photo-sorting in the morning it is. Today was a big coffee day. Tomorrow I anticipate will be much the same.
More pics after the jump.
